Sit on it

Tim Birkhead has been studying a single guillemot population for 40 years. Here he explains how such commitment provides insights that the three-year studies favoured by the research councils cannot hope to match.
I'm dangling somewhat inelegantly from the end of a rope, 200ft above the sea on Skomer Island off Wales' Pembrokeshire coast. Bracing my feet against the cliff face, I gingerly direct the tip of a long fibreglass fishing rod towards a bunch of guillemots. The colony smells something like a fishy pig farm and the noise is deafening. Beneath me the sea is pounding the rocky shoreline; behind me is my climbing buddy and research assistant; and in front of me a hundred adult guillemots are belching out deep guttural roars of parental agitation, and their fluffy offspring are squealing like demented songbirds.